a photo a day :: day 72

I'm still taking at least one picture every day.  Well, I guess I forgot a couple times last week, but I'm trying to take at least one picture every day.  Have I learned anything yet?  That's hard to say.  I think I'm becoming more familiar with all the numbers (aperture, f/stop,etc) and how they relate to each other, and ultimately how that affects the picture.  Although, I still very much operate in the trial and error mode most of the time.

I am also having to think of creative ways to shoot regular day things.  I don't often go out for an exciting picture taking journey every day.  Most days I find myself just about to cook dinner and discovering I haven't taken a picture yet, so I wander around the house, first upstairs, then downstairs, then out on the front porch, looking for something news worthy.  Something that's just screaming to have it's picture taken.  Then after coming up with nothing, I realize that I have to just find something, anything, and try get the best shot possible.  Hopefully, after a year of this, I will have some better techniques for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

color and photos

Color is the theme for the next couple of weeks in my cousin Megan and mine's photo a day project.  This theme can be pretty open to interpretation, and is a very fun and easy one to acheive.  We have come up with a list of themes, with the help of Lukas.  We will be picking randomly from these themes every couple of weeks.  I think it worked out perfectly to start out with some easy ones.  There are a few in our list that are going to require a bit more concentration and perhaps manual reading.  But I'm looking forward to them all, really.  I want to stretch myself and learn more.  

This new photography love of mine has definitely been a happy place for me in  my creative rut.  The rut hasn't trickled over into my camera.  My camera has actually been a tool to help dig me out of my rut.  As are my selfish sewing projects. 

a photo a day

I've started a new project. This is not a project I was planning on starting. It just happened. It's actually a project my cousin Megan started. The moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to start one of my own. But I wanted to do it with her, too. Because I like her, and because I knew these sorts of things are better when you do it with someone else.

We will be attempting to take a photo a day for a whole year. Now I know this is nothing new. People do it all the time. But we've never done it. Megan's husband, Lukas (who needs no help from projects like these), challenged her to take a photo a day as a way to stretch her photographic talent.

We talked about what sort of things we would like to improve in our photography. I would like to work on more interesting compositions, a greater familiarity with my camera settings, better portraits, and losing the fear of self portraits.

This project will start off with just getting used to taking a photo everyday. Once we feel that is part of our routine, we will be adding themes to help guide us and stretch us.

You can follow my photo project at bluecorduroyphotos, and Megan's at onemomenteveryday.

And if this sounds like something you would like to do too, let me know!